On May 10th, the life Eric Davidson knew got destroyed when a drunk hit-and-run driver hit him while Eric was riding his bike. Eric is today suffering a sever brain injury and our lives will never be the same. This is a blog about his recovery, the struggle myself as Eric’s wife, and our families are challenged with.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 30 (day 111)

What can I say about this day – how about if I call it absolute incredible. Several friends came over to see Eric so I had a lot of witnesses today. Eric was alert and funny all day, until the end of the day but I’ll tell you about that soon. First let me tell you about the phone call I got last night from the hospital. They had found Eric on the floor again, this time he had bumped his head. The nurse forgot to restrain him in bed. The doctor checked him and his head was fine, but he hurt his shoulder. I talked with Eric on the phone and we actually had a few minutes conversation where he answered my questions about if he was in pain etc. I was amazed. We had an X-ray done today to make sure he’s ok; the result will come back tomorrow.

Eric’s cousin and SLP both gave us some over the weekend “home-work”, which we worked on today and if it was up to me I’d give him a star plus. Eric read the alphabet, and he read over 20 words. Ok I get it, he can read single words so I need to give him a harder task. He also answered me in Spanish one time and said “I love you” in Swedish!! I had him standing up and reach out to touch a balloon; this exercise is to practice the balance. I held on to him to make sure he was safe but he did all the work, and I didn’t help him, he was able to keep his balance by himself while touching the balloon. We did several more speech, cognitive and balance exercises and overall, Eric did a fabulous job. Eric figured out all by himself how to work the remote control for the TV, desperate times calls for desperate actions…. the football season has started on TV…and Eric knew he had to learn because I sure wasn’t going to help him. He wasn’t just smiling when he got that figured out, he was laughing out loud and talking his own language. He actually talked pretty much all day long, some made sense and some didn’t; at least he’s really really trying.

Later in the day his focused switched to the feeding tube and he wouldn’t let go of that subject. The good news is that he stayed focused on one subject for over an hour; that’s great news actually. The bad news is that he made me and the nurses tired of telling him the same thing, over and over again, why the tub is connected to his stomach, how it works, the fact that he’s safe etc. He didn’t trust anyone, he pushed me away and wanted a second and a third opinion but most of all, he wanted that darn tub out now. I did what a good wife would do; I put him in bed, left the nurse in charge of him and went home to have a glass of wine….